Automated teller machines (ATMs) are well known in the prior art. Customers use ATMs to conduct a variety of banking transactions. These transactions may include making deposits to and withdrawals from accounts, paying bills and checking the status of various accounts.
Some banking transactions have not been performed by ATMs. For example, many people prefer to have the amount of their savings balance recorded in a passbook. Recording amount information in a passbook has generally required a human teller to input the transaction data and to align the passbook in a special printer so that the balance information may be printed in the proper location.
The automated handling of passbooks has proven to be difficult. This is because passbooks are usually fairly thick and are folded. Passbooks tend to skew when transported between conventional rollers or belts because a passbook usually has a different thickness on each side of the fold. This has made it difficult to handle a passbook with automated equipment. Passbooks also come in many different sizes. This has made it difficult to produce a single mechanism that is suitable for handling the wide range of passbooks that may be encountered. It is also difficult to automatically align a passbook with a passbook printer using automated equipment. This is because the passbook pages may tend to become folded and/or caught. Automated handling of passbooks also presents unique problems because of different speeds between the printing mechanism which must firmly engage the passbook during printing and a transport apparatus that may be used to move the passbook. This may result in skewing or misalignment. Such problems result in incorrect positioning of the information which can render the passbook unusable.
Thus there exists a need for a mechanism for handling and transporting a passbook that can be used in an ATM to move a passbook from a customer, position it accurately for printing and then return it to the customer.